Relics by Tim Lebbon
Titan Books (March 21, 2017)
336 pages; $9.76 paperback; $9.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms
The first literary hit of the new year has been born. Tim Lebbon, no stranger to penning stories which shrug off the shackles of genre, has hit 2017 hard with the first of a breathtaking trilogy. Equal parts thriller, horror, and fantasy, Relics takes readers back to his best world creating in the apocalyptic Silence, Coldbrook, and The Nature of Balance, along with the more fantastic in Fallen and Echo City.
A dark market exists in this world, a place where items can be bought and sold, items which hearken back to “The Time,” a period of hidden history unknown to most of humanity, except those who seek to collect its artifacts at all costs.
Angela Gough lives a quiet existence with lover Vince, who is more than he seems. When he disappears, she fears the mundane: a new lover, an accident, or even murder. What she discovers is anything but. Another world exists, one which she needs to become part of if she has any chance of retrieving him alive.
She discovers allies in this journey, the human ones possibly more deadly than the others she cannot understand, partnerships which just might kill her, with everyone promising to be the savior of her lover. However, all of them have agendas which run darker than blood. When she teams up with the most unlikely partners, she begins a journey into the darkness where creatures live, both in the shadows and right under our noses, some wishing for peace while others seek our destruction. What Angela finds shatters her view of reality, unveiling a new world converging with ours, one which might spell disaster for all of mankind in her quest to find her love.
In Relics, Tim Lebbon has created yet another wonderful world for readers to lose themselves in, one which will likely remind them of both Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker, yet speeding them along with the thrilling pace of James Rollins or John Connelly. Lebbon’s writing, as always, seduces the reader, inviting them into his imagination, while they find themselves immersed in the fantastic, horrific roller-coaster ride which ends too soon. Thankfully, Relics will have two sequels to complete the journey.
Highly recommended. If you weren’t a fan of Tim Lebbon before, this will likely be the novel to change your mind.
2 thoughts on “Review: ‘Relics’ by Tim Lebbon”